![]() "Okay then," said Stewart, frowning in thought. You can't use a number of 'south's and 'east's with a common factor," explained John. "How about south-east-east-south?" asked Stewart. "Only the number of norths and easts matters, not their orders." "That's the same as the last one, 9/64 from north," explained Stewart. "And north-north-north-east-east-east-east?" You can name any number of 'north's and 'east's as you like, and I can tell you what fraction it is." Stewart then decided to ask, "What about east-east-east-north-north-east-north?" Check for yourself." Stewart located the arrow pointing 5/32 of the way around the circle, and sure enough, it read north-east-east-north-east. "So what would north-east-east-north-east be?" Stewart decided to challenge the old sailor on this. Just like north-east is between north and east, and east-north-east is between east and north-east." Each direction is named the combination of the two directions it's between. These directions are just for decoration on the compass. Stewart asked his great-uncle, "Uncle John, how did you keep track of all these directions? Didn't you use degrees like we do today?" And it also had the 1/128 bearings and the 1/256 bearings, and so on down until they were so small that Stewart couldn't see them anymore. And between those were thirty-two markings for the 1/64 bearings, starting from north-north-north-north-east. There were sixteen markings for each of the 1/32 bearings, starting from north-north-north-east. Halfway again between those markings were eight markings for the 22.5° (1/16) bearings corresponding to north-north-east, east-north-east, and so on.īut what was special about this giant compass is that the markings went further down. Halfway between those markings were four more markings for the 45° (1/8) bearings of north-east, south-east, south-west, and north-west. ![]() It was beautifully constructed, with hand-printed markings for north, east, south and west. One item caught his eye, which was a giant compass like one would find on a table inside the ship. Stewart was fascinated by all the trinkets. An old sailor, by the name of John, was in his attic with his bright young great-nephew Stewart, showing him all the old tools they used to use while at sea. ![]()
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